In the 1950s, I walked to a neighborhood school, and it felt safe. I don’t think the world is more dangerous for children now or there are necessarily more monsters out there, but something has changed in our culture. We know more about child kidnappings and abuse because of 24/7 news coverage and the Internet. More parents are out at work all day and less hands-on with their kids’ activities. Children are more precocious, but it’s dangerous to interpret that as maturity.

It seems simplistic and perhaps old-fashioned, but there is no substitute for quiet, consistent vigilance. It isn’t a child’s job to keep herself safe; it’s ours.

It’s a beautiful world out there, but we need to hold our children’s hands through childhood, and we need to prepare them for adulthood by training them to be self-protective and savvy on the streets.

Comments

While I fully agree that it's parents' job to keep kids safe, it is also our duty as parents to constantly talk to them about stranger danger. I also disagree that a 6 year old is not sure what touching is inappropriate. I was one of the kids whose parents talked to about it openly since I was probably 3 years old and when I once in my life went to a movie theater along, at the age of 6.5, it was across the street from where we lived, and it was 1980's in the Soviet Union, it felt extremely safe there and kids played in the playground by themselves since they were literally 3-4 years old, but on that day, a man sat next to me and started touching me. Right away, I got up and thinking that he might follow me home, went to a library which was right next and asked the librarian to call my parents.